Oscar Mayer bacon barterer is living high on the hog

Everybody loves bacon, but what would you give up in exchange for a precious slice of pig? That was the question Oscar Mayer set out to answer when the company loaded comedian and actor John Sankey with 3,000 pounds of its new Thick Cut Bacon (that's about $20,000 of pig)...

By Kalen Deremo

September 21, 2012

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Everybody loves bacon, but what would you give up in exchange for a precious slice of pig? That was the question Oscar Mayer set out to answer when the company loaded comedian and actor John Sankey with 3,000 pounds of its new Thick Cut Bacon (that's about $20,000 of pig) to use as barter as he traveled across the country, from New York to L.A.

Sankey passed through Denver this week, and altough we had some trouble tracking him down, we know from his Twitter account that he was hanging out with "Linda and her wild friends at Charlie's in Denver." So either Linda has a friend named Charlie, or Sankey spent the night doing bacon business at the cowboy-themed gay bar on Colfax.

On his journey, which Oscar Mayer is referring to as the "Great American Bacon Barter," Sankey has obtained some wacky gifts in exchange for his "bricks" of bacon. More trivial items include jumper cables, moonshine, a taxi ride, bug spray and a physic reading, but some people have swapped more personal presents, like a ticket to a New York Jets game and an invitation to a wedding in the Hamptons. At a stop in Kentucky, he even agreed to exchange 137 bricks of bacon with a man who then tattooed the words "bacon" on his arm. Sankey's lodgings have ranged from family couches to a college house near Purdue University to a Chicago firehouse.

Sarkey left Denver yesterday and headed west, taking the rest of his bacon with him.

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